About Me

If I can just give to the world more than I take from it, I will be a very happy man. For there is no greater joy in life than to give.
Motto : Live, Laugh and Love.
You can follow me on Twitter too . My handle is @Raja_Sw.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

First of all, congratulations on Aam Aadmi Party now
forming a government in Delhi. I was waiting for this to happen before writing
this piece to you. Now that it has happened (and I hope it will last long
enough for you to implement some of your plans), here are some thoughts I’d
like you to consider during your governance. I’m sure you must be getting a lot
of suggestions from lots of people – here’s another set for you.

As you know, even as you start, you walk a very
treacherous path. You have plenty of aam aadmi support, no doubt - but there
are plenty of vested interests, waiting to trip you up. So while it’s important
to stay focussed on the job, it’s also very important not to give ammunition to
these vested interests.

I know you have a detailed manifesto - and you and your
team must be working on it with a lot of focus and enthusiasm. I will not get
into its details – I am not competent to do so.

At a more general level, however, I’d like to make a few suggestions :

1) Baseline
your start.

You are taking over administration of Delhi from a
previous government. You need to baseline this – meaning, you should be able to
measure your starting point. Make sure you have the social development (and
economic) metrics available to you. Get any existing figures re-checked if you
like. Statistics can be notoriously off for a whole host of reasons, as you
know. When you need to ever measure your government’s achievements (or discuss
it with the media or others), you would know its starting point.

2) Use a
project management approach.

I do not mean you need to get caught up in all sorts
of charts and graphs. But in execution of your plans, whether at mohalla level
or a higher level, insist on everything being treated as a project – with
tasks, deadlines, budgets, responsibilities and tracking. There’s a lot to be
done, and this method will go a long way in bringing about efficiency in
delivery on projects, as well as optimal use of resources.

3) Continue to
keep things transparent.

One of the biggest pluses of your party’s style of
functioning is that it is very transparent. No other political party can claim
this. I can assure you this alone has won you a lot, and I mean a lot, of
goodwill amongst the people. So please continue with this. I’d suggest the
following in this context:

a) If I understand it correctly, in your devolved mohalla
sabha approach, each ward is further comprised of mohalla sabhas. Each mohalla
sabha is run as an administrative unit, with its management committee, its
projects, its budget and so on. Please set up a website where one could
navigate easily to the lowest devolution level, see what projects are going on,
what funds are being used and so on. Keep it transparent and updated for all to
see. This is not just for the public but
also for you. You might want to personally visit mohalla sabhas to catch up
with them – this update would be useful for you.

b) Have an Information Officer. It would be his/her responsibility to ensure all the information provided on the Delhi Govt’s website
is updated and accurate.

c) Believe in suo moto communication, not just in RTI. I
know you championed RTI all those years ago – and it has helped a great deal.
But it would be better if people did not even need to ask for basic information –
it should already be available to them from the government. In an
easy-to-digest format. Especially information on projects, their budgets,
delivery deadlines, any cost overruns etc.

So please provide this to the public as their right to
know. And please do so in an easy-to-use format (maybe spreadsheet-based) , not
hundreds of pages of PDF files that sometimes government documents end up being. We then cannot see the woods for the trees.

4) Ensure the
economics side works too.

One of the biggest criticisms about you is about your
apparent disregard for the economic impact of your policies. You are seen not
just as “left of centre but, even “left of left”. In other words, a mindset of
extremely populist policies which could be a major financial burden on the exchequer.

I am not saying I agree with this opinion of you (my
opinion doesn’t really matter), but it is very important that your policies
always have an economic impact assessment too. Finally you will need to balance
your books as part of your governance – and while the people do come first,
poor economics in the present only means robbing from the future.

5) Use people
power.

In your administration, there may be many a time that
you feel you are not able to push something through, for a whole host of reasons.
I suspect this might very often be because of entrenched systems. Or vested
interests. Or, especially in the case of Delhi’s peculiar situation of being
both a state, and the country capital, a conflict with the Central
Government.

In such situations, use people power to put pressure
on whatever obstacle comes in your way. You have tremendous goodwill with the
people of Delhi (and I daresay, rest of the country too). In the new style
politics that you and your party have engineered, people seem to have much more
power than they’ve ever had before. This is also making other political parties
(and the central government) have to listen more to the public. So use this
fully to your advantage.

6) Be firm in
dealing with compromised people.

You are seen as a person who wants to bring about a
new style of politics in the country. One that is clean, one that cares about
the people, one that seeks or uses a position of power only for the people’s
good. The people you carry with you also need to reflect this same mindset.

This is not an easy line to walk – and it is possible
that, somewhere down the line, some of your associates might get compromised.
While that will be personally difficult for you, given your association with
them, it is necessary that you do not allow this to sully your image, or distract
you from the larger task on hand. Many a political party has turned a blind eye
to compromised members. If your party is different, that needs to be
demonstrated in those testing times.

7) Keep
government and party affairs and finances separate.

AAP is a new party and still evolving. This is also
the first time it is forming a government. There is a chance that, in all the
enthusiasm and inexperience, there is often an overlap between the two.

Keep them separate. The people of Delhi (even those
who didn’t vote for AAP) deserve governance and transparency from the
government of Delhi, not from a political party.

At the same time, AAP needs to continue to evolve and
establish itself across the country. I am confident it will do that on its own
strengths. Of reaching out to the aam aadmi, of being transparent in its
dealings and finances, of sticking to its value-based and principled politics.

So while you and others in government can help the
party evolve, it is important to keep the two separate and do justice to both.

8) Continue to
be yourself.

You are where you are, because of who you are. People
respect your sincerity, your humility, your dedication to your cause. People
trust you – and trust is one of the most precious assets a person can have. So
please ensure you do nothing to lose this trust.

Stay on the side of truth. This might sound like a
silly and absurd suggestion, especially in the world of politics, but there’s something
to be said for this old-fashioned value that’s sadly fast going out of fashion.

And continue to rant about injustice and corruption.
It might make some people queasy but the public needs to know what is going on.
Far too often, we have seen politicians, and people in the know, turn a blind eye
towards wrongdoings. By being in the know and not speaking out against injustice,
you would be indirectly supporting it.

I could think of a few other points that I’d like to
share with you – but I think this is already a lot to digest.

I wish you all the very best, Arvind. It is not going
to be an easy road – if only because of entrenched interests that will try to
thwart you at every step and try to break you and your team’s resolve.

But as long as you have the people’s support with you,
I think you can overcome any obstacle in your way. Systems of governance have, after all, been set up only for the people – and therefore need to be changed if
the people want this change. Nothing is sacrosanct if it comes in the way of
delivering justice to the people.

So, good luck!

Oh, and one last thing. Please do accept the security
offered by the state police to you. I know you are refusing it because you
think it is a privilege the aam aadmi does not get – but trust me, most of us
feel very uncomfortable if you don’t get some sort of security cover. So, please
accept this. We would be happy – and relieved.

In coming days , will AAP leaders conduct themselves with such honesty / dignity / transparency / sense of purpose , that ,

> 42 opposition MLAs would find it impossible to oppose the Vote of Confidence on 3rd Jan ?

> Congress / BJP will be forced to take action against their own corrupt leaders ( eg: Adarsh Scam ) ?

> Some 1400 regional political parties ( as per Election Commission records ) may consider merging with AAP , in order to bring about a change in the political climate of India ( a viable 3rd front ) ?

A very well written "letter" and I'd expect nothing less from you. Frankly I would know nothing of governance but most of what you say sounds very sensible.

I'd add one point, probably the most important one; the need for both Mr Kejriwal as well as his team members to retain their touch with their roots and not be swayed by power and its trappings. Power does have a way of going to one's head, and it takes no time to get used to its slick ways. I know it has been their USP and let's hope it remains so. Very stringent and constant self monitoring will deliver that. Let's see how it goes.

Hoping this young bunch will finally prove all the naysayers wrong. Good luck to them !

Sorry if this reads more like my own aspirations rather than a response to your piece. Just got carried away, as is my wont.:-)

Very well put, Raja. I also think that Kejriwal and AAP need to move toward more accountable speaking. Less absolutes, more deliverables or it is going to be easy to tangle them in demands for accountability on the smallest things. For example the declaration to not take support from Congress or BJP. It got sort of overruled through a plebiscite - which is a very valid and superior way to dealing with the problem than rigidly sticking to a word just because it is given or a leader arbitrarily changing word on a commitment. However, it will not prevent malicious troublemaking accusations that could have been avoided by simply stating a goal of independent governance and consultation with people on important matters. It would convey the same preferences, but based on values, so that better alternatives could be chosen with minimum contradictions. I guess this political agility will take a while to evolve too.